dvd burner - really slow response

[steve_dum at mentorg.com]

I'm running FC3 with the 2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp kernel. 
If I put a dvd in my drive, fire up k3b and ask for disk info k3b goes away
for 7 minutes -- SEVEN MINUTES -- and then comes back and and shows the disk 
info.   Same disk on a RH 8 system comes back in a few seconds.

I have a Hi-Val "DVD RW 4XMax" (iomagic DD0203) 4x dvd +/-R writer.
There are no messages logged in /var/log messages and no errors reported
by k3b.

The above is a specific behavior, but in general reading or writing dvd's
takes forever.  Drive worked fine under FC1.  

Reading/writing cd-r media doesn't show these excessive delays but also
is slower than under FC1.  While waiting, the drive activity light tends to
be either off, or occasionally blinking, but not constantly busy.

Does anyone have any ideas on what would cause this, or if there is a
workaround.  I didn't see any issues listed in bugzilla.

steve